Mid-2012 MBP Severe slowdown and battery drainage... Is this the end?

[db3545]

Hello everyone,

First I need to give the disclaimer that I am not well versed in this area, and I am completely new to these boards, so I apologize if I'm a little slow on the pick up. Thanks for your patience!

SO! Recently my Mid-2012 Macbook Pro started slowing down significantly. I'm getting rainbow wheels with just about every task, and it seems as though the computer has to think for 30 seconds with each and every move. Also, my battery life has been terrible, even when idling. For example, I unplugged my computer at around 9am this morning when it was indicating a full charge. At approximately 11am, I picked up the computer (which had been closed and idling for the entire elapsed time) and found that it was very warm, and had a battery percentage of 55%.

I have read through several discussion boards regarding issues like this, and I have tried most of the recommendations that people have made, all with no success.

I have gone as far as doing a hard/factory reset to the computer, bringing it back to OS X, and then upgrading to High Sierra.

I have also run a EtreCheck, which i will show below. Please let me know if you guys have ANY idea of what may be going on! Thank you so much!

EtreCheck version: 3.4.6 (460)
Report generated 2017-12-06 15:02:09
Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com
Runtime: 41:14
Performance: Poor

Click the [Lookup] links for more information from Apple Support Communities.
Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: Beachballing
Description:
Computer is taking a significant amount of time to complete tasks. Battery life is also severely impacted, even during idling periods.

Hardware Information: ⓘ
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]
MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,2
1 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-3520M) CPU: 2-core
8 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]
BANK 0/DIMM0
4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
BANK 1/DIMM0
4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
Handoff/Airdrop2: supported
Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n
Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 926

Video Information: ⓘ
Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1536 MB
Color LCD 1280 x 800

Disk Information: ⓘ
APPLE HDD TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF disk0: (750.16 GB) (Rotational)
[Show SMART report]
EFI (disk0s1 - MS-DOS FAT32) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB
(disk0s2) <not mounted> [CoreStorage Container]: 749.30 GB
(disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-8A8 ()

USB Information: ⓘ
USB20Bus
hub_device
Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
USB20Bus
hub_device
hub_device
Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
USB30Bus

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ
Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Virtual disks: ⓘ
Macintosh HD (disk1 - Journaled HFS+) / [Startup]: 748.93 GB (733.35 GB free)
Physical disk: disk0s2 749.30 GB Online

System Software: ⓘ
macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 (17B48) - Time since boot: about 13 hours

Gatekeeper: ⓘ
Mac App Store and identified developers

System Launch Agents: ⓘ
[not loaded] 7 Apple tasks
[loaded] 183 Apple tasks
[running] 98 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ
[failed] com.apple.updateEFIDesktopPicture-apfs.plist (Apple, Inc. - installed 2017-10-25)
[not loaded] 39 Apple tasks
[loaded] 177 Apple tasks
[running] 113 Apple tasks

Launch Daemons: ⓘ
[not loaded] com.apple.installer.cleanupinstaller.plist (? 1963bf56 0 - installed 2017-12-05)

User Launch Agents: ⓘ
[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2017-12-06) [Lookup]

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ
QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2017-10-25)

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ
None

Time Machine: ⓘ
Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ
7% WindowServer
4% kernel_task
2% helpd
0% UserAccountUpdater
0% Google Chrome Helper

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ
791 MB kernel_task
281 MB Google Chrome Helper
228 MB Google Chrome
176 MB Google Chrome Helper
176 MB mds_stores

Top Processes by Network Use: ⓘ
Input Output Process name
51 KB 26 KB mDNSResponder
4 KB 2 KB apsd
3 KB 2 KB netbiosd
0 B 376 B SystemUIServer

Top Processes by Energy Use: ⓘ
10.52 WindowServer
1.16 UserAccountUpdater
0.18 SystemUIServer
0.12 Google Chrome Helper

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ
4.20 GB Available RAM
1011 MB Free RAM
3.80 GB Used RAM
3.21 GB Cached files
0 B Swap Used


Diagnostics Events (last 3 days for minor events): ⓘ
2017-12-06 01:20:42 WindowServer Crash [Open]
Cause: StartTime:2017-12-06 01:18:34
GPU:
VirtDisplay0
Assertion failed: (0 && "Attempting to get MTLTexture with no MTLDevice"), function GetMTLTexture, file /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/CoreDisplay/CoreDisplay-79.8/CoreDisplay/Display/DisplaySurface.mm, line 498.
2017-12-06 00:52:25 Last shutdown cause: 3 - Hard shutdown

 

[kohlson]

The Apple utility (in Apps/Utilities) Activity Monitor might be of help here. Open it up and take a look at the Energy tab, and see if there are any apps using energy. On apps like browsers, there can be a twisty to give some further visibility (like a tab or website).

I would start there - easy to do and this will tell you right away if there is an offending app.

 

[db3545]

The Apple utility (in Apps/Utilities) Activity Monitor might be of help here. Open it up and take a look at the Energy tab, and see if there are any apps using energy. On apps like browsers, there can be a twisty to give some further visibility (like a tab or website).

I would start there - easy to do and this will tell you right away if there is an offending app.

I've been keeping a close eye on the activity monitor, and there is nothing that is jumping out at me. Seems to be just the norm. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[organicCPU]

By reading the specs, it seems that the HDD could be the major problem. 1.) A 5 years old HDD has probably reached its EOL very soon (nevertheless check the SMART status) 2.) A mechanical HDD for a system like Mac OS X 10.10. Yosemite and up in general is not the ideal choice. You could do yourself a favour and buy a SSD.
Especially with just 4 GB of RAM your Mac is writing lots of temporary data on the disk drive (putting in some more RAM wouldn't be a mistake, either), so that a faster SSD should solve the beachball issue and additionally would safe you some battery.
However, if you feel like investigating the issue with your current setup, usually I'd recommend cleaning caches (start in Safe Mode by holding Shift and then restart normally) or tinker with Onyx to wipe some more caches out. But as you said, you made a clean install and so there shouldn't be some disturbing caches around. Press 'd' during boot to get a diagnose of hardware, just to make sure there is no other serious defect, before buying a 1 TB Samsung EVO 850 SSD and enjoy your Mac again...

EDIT: 8 GB RAM should be o.k.